I am in memory mode.
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This often happens when I wake and greet the morning.
It is VCE time again for our senior students. My mind casts back at least 30 years to the moment when the first of our children fronted VCE. It is indelibly etched in my memory bank.
Those were the days when our family were still under one roof and we knew which beds our children slept in and what they were eating and drinking!
We didn’t know it then but they were the best of times, the halcyon days when our home was filled with laughter, teasing, loud music and quiet study times when we all tip-toed around in silent mode.
I am time-travelling again, returning to our old home. I know someone is awake.
Restless stirrings, quick voices in haste, a breathless goodbye and she is off to face the first of those VCE exams - English.
Rob and I were chauffeur, cheer leader, the gopher for everything she needed during those next three weeks.
She, our oldest daughter, the first of four in our family to face the final year of school examinations.
Remaining family members could be heard chorusing ‘good luck, break–a-leg’ as we strode quickly out to the car for the journey to the school on the hill.
We survived four such VCE years.
I joke about my hair turning white and Rob becoming swiftly bald.
It’s not far from the truth. When I recall those years now I marvel at how quickly they flew by.
As our children peeled off, one by one, down to Melbourne and on to further studies, realisation dawned that our family home was changing.
Where once I dreamt of a quiet home and time to myself, when it happened it was too quiet, lacking the excitement and energy that our children brought with them.
There was an acceptance that our lives would be different.
Suddenly weekends became our centres of excitement.
Children returned for birthdays, theirs and friends, eventually 21st parties which seemed to stretch endlessly and forever, and partners began arriving on the scene....and we moved into a totally new phase of family, when others entered the family circle. Cars piled up in the driveway.
In the years that followed we moved them from flats to houses, farewelled them from airports, collected them from airports and visited them overseas.
Finally they all came home...and settled into nesting themselves.
For parents, everything changes and yet everything stays the same.
We are still their parents; our children continue to retain great family love and loyalty to each other.
They still come home to see us, not as often as we would wish perhaps, but they are extremely busy parents themselves.
Now, however, we have a beautiful new generation to enjoy, to spoil and to worry about.
Back to that VCE and those last weeks of school.
If you are a student, remember it is only the first step towards the next stage of your life; just the beginning of something new and exciting.
Good luck you courageous Year 12 students, whether VCE, VET or VCAL. You will never forget your school days. Enjoy these final days and may you be happy in whatever you choose to do in those endless possibilities of the future.